27

Australia's states are split over free public transport as the war in the Middle East drives fuel costs higher, with Victoria and Tasmania waiving fares while NSW, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia have ruled out following suit.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Ilandar@lemmy.today 3 points 2 hours ago

Both The Greens and The Liberals had 50c fares as one of their policies in the SA election. It's easy to make those types of promises when you know you're not forming government, but I wonder if it points to an appetite in the community for more affordable public transport. I dismissed it prior to these emergency measures coming in elsewhere, but now I wonder if that news will stir up similar demands here. Then again, Labor just won in a landslide so it's not like they're under any immediate pressure to make big changes.

[-] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 hours ago

Queensland has had 50c fares for a couple of years now. Queensland "not following suit" doesn't exactly mean the same thing as states leaving their public transport at full price

[-] Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 3 points 5 hours ago

No one pays for the bus or tram in Melbourne anyway, this isn't going to make much difference

[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

We already made it free for eshays.

this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
27 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

4915 readers
208 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS